Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Get Thee Behind Me, Ben & Jerry!

The Last Ongoing Temptation Of El Capitan

Quick LOLA update...

I was planning on doing a more detailed post on Friday, and I still may, but there's a bit of a crisis going on.

There's a long list of things I don't eat anymore, and while I'm finding I don't particularly miss some things (McDonald's burgers, fried foods), others are a constant yearning struggling to break free.

I'm at the local HEB buying groceries this evening, and somehow managed to walk down exactly the wrong frikkin' aisle.

I can skip past the bread, pasta and snack foods with nary a wobbly knee, and I've learned to avoid the deli and pastry section completely. Even though I sorely miss pizza and spicy chicken strips, I can pass those up as well. Frozen pizza is never that good, and the chicken strips just aren't the same without big goopy globs of bleu cheese dressing, so no real struggle there.

Even ice cream has been easy to avoid. A half-gallon bucket is absolutely verboten, and even the pint-size cartons are just too caloric to deal with.

However...

I happened to notice a new addition in the frozen food section. Single-serving portions of ice cream.

Not just one, either. Dreyer's, Blue Bell, Haagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's, and a couple of other makers are offering tiny little cups of ice cream for around a dollar apiece.

Evil bastards...

They're not very large, about the size of a Dixie Cup with a lid. They're still in the 200-300 calorie range, though. I can't see giving up a portion of pretzels or a cup of oatmeal for three bites of Cherry Garcia.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Friday Funny

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Fugly Guns

Random Pet Peeves From The Gun Room

WTF is wrong with Smith & Wesson?

How can a company that created a beautiful revolver like this:

...end up making a fugly-looking hot ghetto mess like this?

It's bad enough that you've got the safety lock "zit" on the side, there's also the funky angular barrel shroud, the lack of a common finish on all parts, and an overall appearance of something you'd find on the toy aisle at Wal-Mart.

I won't even get into the matter of the 8-shot cylinder, other than to say try tucking a Coke can into your pants to simulate concealing that diameter.

What really gives me a case of the red-ass is the metal insert just above the forcing cone. Here's a close-up from a different pistol:

This has to be a poorly-engineered afterthought... It's probably due to excessive gas-cutting of the frame, and rather than use a better grade of steel, you take a sliver of corrosion-resistant steel and wedge it into the frame, then replace it every 5,000 rounds when it burns through.

You just know that little hook is going to snag everything that gets near it, collect grime and dirt like a magnet, not to mention slicing the #*%@ out of your finger when you wipe down the inside of the frame while cleaning...

Luckily, there's no lack of older Smiths out there on the market for those who value aesthetics as much as reliability and accuracy in their firearms!

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Saturday Cigars

After my niece & nephew were packed into Grammy & Pop-Pop's car for a trip to go to a Dora the Explorer appearance, Uncle Cap wisely made himself scarce and retreated to the regional man-cave.

I'd been to the Serious Cigars on Richmond Ave. after work on Friday. It's a nice place, with a much better selection that most local cigar shops, but they didn't have a couple of sticks I'd seen on their website. The guy at the register told me to go to the main store up in FM 1960 where they fill the web & mail orders.

A quick run up the Beltway put me into the weekend traffic mess around Willowbrook Mall, but I managed to plow through and find the shop in the 6600 block of 1960. It's tucked in a little hidey-hole behind a Cort Furniture outlet, and it's next to a full-service car wash.

The humidor is amazing. It's a big U-shaped room wrapped around the smoking lounge. I still didn't find what I was looking for, but the manager on duty knew exactly what I was hunting, and dispatched a cigar wallah to the depths of the store room, and she returned bearing a handful of sticks.

I'm becoming quite partial to Torpedo-shaped cigars. Once you slice off the pointy tip with your cutter, I think you get a better draw than with a Toro or Robusto of equal ring gauge.

I'm also tempted to buy my first box of a certain type. I have been very impressed with the Vega Fina Torpedo. I sort of see it as the cigar equivalent of a lawnmower beer. Not too pricy, not overpowering, just a nice tasty smoke for a Saturday afternoon. I picked up a trio and fired one up in the lounge.

It's a pleasant place to burn a stogie, with an abundance of big leather chairs and cigar ashtrays & table lighters. They sell soft drinks and let you bring in beer & liquor. They also rent storage lockers in the humidor, so you can keep your stash handy. I may find myself visiting often on the Saturdays following a payday.

I didn't know a soul there, but everyone was friendly enough. There's a big-screen TV and a large collection of manly magazines.

I bought another cigar I was curious about. It's a cigar infused with Maker's Mark bourbon. I'm thinking these are a bit of a gimmick, and cost twice as much as they're worth, but what the hell...

Independent tests confirm... One out of one nephews prefer Maker's Mark cigars!

Bee Cool

Thursday, August 12, 2010

OK, I'm Confused...

The Worst Of Both Worlds?

Anybody know what's going on here?

I can't figure out if this is a cop car that takes you to jail and charges you $1.25 per mile, or if the Yellow Cab that picks you up when you're too shitfaced to drive home also arrests you for Public Intoxication.

At any rate, it was parked out in front of the Casa Grande De Policia Wednesday.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Paranoia May Destroy Ya!

Twice last week the break room at the office was occupied by allegedly delicious chocolate cakes. On Wednesday, a frosted bundt cake tried to taunt me, and a 1/2 sheet cake took up most of the table on Friday.

Yesterday, the Grand Poobahs bought pizza for the entire floor. I had to go hide in my office most of the day to escape the delicious aroma. Late yesterday afternoon, I crept in the breakroom to get a Diet Dr Pepper, and was assaulted by a stack of empty pizza boxes. See, there was this tiny voice inside crying "...help me... help me!!!"

Naturally, I investigated, and found one lone slice of cold pizza lurking in ambush. I was sorely tempted to gobble it down, but it had been there for several hours, and pawed over by who knows how many rat paws, so I had to let it go with a deep sniffling inhale to imbed the pizza aroma in my memory, then I pitched it in the trash.

Adding insult to injury, I finally convinced myself I could have a small slice of the fat-free sugar-free angelfood cake Mom bought on my birthday. I'd let it languish on the kitchen counter just a bit too long, though. On the second bite (naturally), I spied a bunch of blue fuzz on the underside of the slice. I didn't know cake went moldy, but this one did. Well, I've got my dose of penicillin, anyway.

I fully expect to leave the office today and be met by people handing out free Dove bars and pans of lasagna.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Two-Part Fart

More Unintended Consequences Of Project LOLA

One of the great joys of being a male is standing up to pee. I mean, what's not to like? You get to air our your crotchable area, maybe bounce up and down a few times in mid-stream to resettle all the fiddly bits, and if you're lucky, you get to squeeze out an air-biscuit or two during the process. Kind of a musical accompaniment to your micturition!

Before LOLA, the gaseous expulsion would travel the path of least resistance, out from the bunghole, sliding past the buttcheeks and seeking the open air.

With the reduced volume of each buttcheek, though, I'm finding that the bolus of farty vapor is getting trapped in mid-cheek. A pocket of fart storage is being formed. It requires a firm tensing of the gluteus maximi to expel the fart out into the Great Wide Open. So, you get the initial sphincter bleat, followed by the warbling of two asscheeks vibrating together.

Oh, it's not all bad. With a little rhythym, you can be your own percussion section while humming your favorite pee-tune.

I s'pose this means I'll need a butt-lift somewhere in the distant future...

Monday, August 09, 2010

On The Road With Cigar & Firearm

Another fun-filled weekend for El Capitan! Of course, I'm paying for it now in lack of sleep and a slightly sore ass from riding around, but it was worth the butt-numb.

Friday night was the regular Poker-Fest up at the Cisco Kid's place. We had a good crowd, and the chips started flowing at a rate rarely seen around the table. When you play for nickel-dime-quarter stakes, a $13 pot is one for the record books. I could have done a lot worse, buying in for $15, and going home with $8 and change. Usually, I lose all of it!

It's the kind of poker that drives the pros and purists crazy. Multiple wild cards & nonstandard games make it impossible to predict the odds, and many, many times you'll go all in on 4 kings just to be beat by 5 threes. Still, it's fun, and no one loses so much you can't make the rent.

Saturday was another trip back to Galveston. I drove down to see Jim from Smoke On The Water and help him out on a project.

Jim may have lost his sloop to Hurricane Ike, but he's doing all right. He and his partner/GF/SO Iris have a beautiful home, and Jim's spent a fair amount of time redoing the interior following the Ike flood. Jim could make a great living as a contractor if he decided to go that route. The interior work is impeccable, and if it weren't for a couple of extremely fuzzy cats laying around, you'd think you were in a model home for a new subdivision.

He's also pretty handy in the kitchen. He cooked up some extremely tasty slabs of dead cow for dinner, and afterwards we hung out on the porch to watch the sun go down, accompanied by bourbon, beer and cigars.

So, muchas gracias, Jim & Iris!!

I got up early Sunday and puttered around the house for a bit. The urge to go do something hit just before noon, and I wandered downtown to the Angelika to catch a flick. I've got to start going later in the day. For some reason, every time I go, whatever film I'm seeing is always in the #6 theater all the way in the back, and the underpowered A/C hasn't cooled the place off yet. You sweat through half the damn movie...

It wasn't as good a film as 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo', and I'm even less inclined to read the novels after seeing where the plot went. There's something about the Swedish point-of-view that's slightly off with a murder mystery. It's like hearing ABBA sing an AC/DC tune. They get the words right, its nicely melodic, but fundamentally it's just wrong, wrong, wrong. Oh, I don't doubt there's crime in Sweden, but they haven't had a warrior tradition in 800 years. Even Gustavus Adolphus had to hire Finnish cavalry to do his dirty work...

Long week coming up. I'm in & out of the office almost every day, and flat stony broke until payday this Friday. Luckily there's gas in the tank and food in the fridge!

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Fuck You, AT&T!!

It should NOT take almost an hour of websearching just to find a phone number that you can call and actually speak to a human being!!

Long story short, an AT&T repair truck blew a stop sign this morning 3 blocks from my house, and I had to stand on my brakes to keep from hitting him.

I followed the asshole back to my own street, where he was pulled up next to another AT&T truck. Not wanting to shit where I live, I got his truck # and license plate, and would call AT&T dispatch from the office.

Little did I know that if you don't have an account with AT&T, they really REALLY don't give a shit about speaking with you. I either got busy signals, answering machines, or no answer at all on most numbers in the directory, and all the automated lines insisted on a 10 digit phone # before you could proceed.

More Gunny Goodness!

Most gun collectors accumulators that I know have two types of guns on their "To Be Collected" list:

A) The guns they can afford to purchase, and

B) The ones they can't afford to purchase. (A *MUCH* longer list...)

There's a certain category of rifle I've long looked at with lust in my heart, but will probably remain far out of reach of my monkey paws due to the relative rarity, and the accompanying high price.

I speak of the musket-stocked rifle. Every so often a rifle manufacturer will have delusions of selling a sporting rifle as a military rifle, so they slap on a full-length stock and go shopping it out to Third World dictators.

OK, not really... I can't say for certain why the musket stock stuck around after the muzzle-loading rifled muskets were made obsolete by breech-loading cartridge rifles, but a full-length stock on a longarm had been de rigueur for 300+ years, so perhaps that's why they stayed in fashion. That, and it's a handy way to keep your magazine tube from getting dinged up and impairing the proper feed of rounds into the action.

I can't explain why the look appeals to me so much. Maybe it's a visual representation of the transition between eras, or the way the bare metal of the barrel is clad by the organic embrace of polished walnut. Heck, maybe I just like barrel bands. Hard to say...

Here's a collection of musket-stocked rifles:(Click pic to embiggenate!)

I saw a version of the musket-stocked firearm that I've never seen before, and it sent massive waves of WANT!!! throughout my brain.

Alas, at a price tag of $2000, it will remain a Want, not a Have. At least for the foreseeable future.